Battling the Unknown: Portraying Lived Experiences of COVID-19 and Long-COVID
Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) presented the world with a phenomenon that has been difficult to both understand and live with. Listening to, and being able to learn from, the day-to-day lived experiences of individuals who have had, and in some cases were still recovering from, COVID-19 was highlighted as a priority by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
Our work used a novel story telling approach (composite vignettes) to explore the secondary, and often overlooked socio-psychological effects and their implications. The most common themes and experiences revealed during the analysis of the shared accounts, were used to create four descriptive experience portrayals. Each story, whilst representing the experiences of multiple participants, sought to give a single voice to a different experience trajectory, whilst capturing from the acute onset of symptoms through the ongoing recovery process (6–11 months post-infection), how COVID-19 and subsequent long-COVID shaped the individuals’ everyday lives.